Short Fiction, Fyodor Sologub [most popular novels of all time .txt] 📗

didn’t mind, that he felt no pain, and that he also enjoyed the fun. But it grew harder and harder for him to smile, and he had a very strong desire to cry. He knew that he ought not to cry, that it was a disgrace, and he restrained himself with an effort.

Happily he was soon delivered. The blue-eyed Lydochka, upon hearing the children’s boisterous laughter, went to see what had happened. She reproached the nurse: “Aren’t you ashamed to go on like this?”

She herself had difficulty to keep from laughing at Grisha’s pitiful, confused face. But she restrained herself, and upheld her dignity as a grown young woman before the nurse and the children.

The nurse rose and said, laughing: “Georginka did it quite gently. The boy himself didn’t say that it hurt him.”

“You mustn’t do such things,” said Lydochka sternly.

Georgik, unhappy because they had taken him away from Grisha, raised a cry. Lydochka took him in her arms and carried him away to quiet him. The nurse followed her. But the boys and the girls remained. They thronged round Grisha and eyed him unceremoniously.

“Perhaps he’s got stuck-on ears,” suggested one of the boys, “that’s why he doesn’t feel any pain.”

“I rather think you like to be held by your ears,” said another.

“Tell us,” said the little girl with the large blue eyes, “which ear does your mother catch hold of most?”

“His ears have been stretched out to order in a workshop,” cried a merry youngster, and laughed loudly at his own joke.

“No,” another corrected him, “he was born like that. When he was very small he was led not by his hand but by his ear.”

Grisha looked at his tormentors like a small beast at bay, with a fixed smile on his face, when, suddenly, wholly unexpectedly to the cheerful company, he burst into tears. Many small drops fell on his jacket. The children grew quiet at once. They became uneasy. They exchanged embarrassed glances, and looked silently at Grisha as he wiped the tears from his face with his thin hands; he appeared to be ashamed of his tears.

“Why should he be offended?” said the beautiful, flaxen-haired Katya angrily. “Who’s done him any harm? The ugly duckling!”

“He’s not an ugly duckling. You’re an ugly duckling yourself,” intervened Mitya.

“I can’t stand rude people,” said Katya, growing red with vexation.

A little, brown-faced girl in a red dress looked long at Grisha, and knitted her brows as in reflection. Then she scanned the other children with her perplexed eyes, and asked quietly:

“Why then did he smile?”

II

It was not often that Grisha’s wardrobe received important additions. His mother could not afford it; hence, every item gave Grisha great joy. The autumn cold came, and Grisha’s mother bought an overcoat, a hat and mittens. The mittens pleased Grisha more than anything else.

On the holiday, after Mass, he put on his new things and went out to play. He loved to walk about in the streets, and he used to go out alone; his mother had no time to go out with him. She looked proudly out of the window as Grisha walked gravely by. She recalled at that moment her well-to-do relatives who had promised her so much, and had done so little, and she thought: “Well, I’ve managed it without them, thank God!”

It was a cold, clear day; the sun did not shine with its full brightness; the waters of the canals in the city were covered with their first thin ice. Grisha walked the streets, rejoicing in this brisk cold, in his new clothes, and with his naive fancies; he always loved to dream when he was alone, and he dreamt always of great deeds, of fame, of a bright, happy life in a rich house, indeed of everything that was unlike the sad reality.

As Grisha stood on the bank of the canal and looked through the iron railings at the thin ice that floated on the surface, he was approached by a street urchin in threadbare attire, and with hands red from the cold. He entered into conversation with Grisha. Grisha was not afraid of him, and even pitied him because of his benumbed hands. His new acquaintance informed him that he was called Mishka, but that his family name was Babushkin, because he and his mother lived with his babushka.6

“But then what is your mother’s family name?”

“My mother’s name?” repeated Mishka, smiling. “She’s called Matushkin, because my babushka is no babushka to her, but is her matushka.”7

“That’s strange,” said Grisha with astonishment. “My mother and I have one family name; we are called the Igumnovs.”

“That’s because,” explained Mishka with animation, “your grandfather was an igumen.”8

“No,” said Grisha, “my grandfather was a colonel.”

“All the same it’s likely that his father, or someone else was an igumen, and so you have all become the Igumnovs.”

Grisha did not know who his great-grandfather was, so he said nothing, Mishka kept on eyeing his mittens.

“You have handsome mittens,” he said.

“New ones,” Grisha explained, with a joyous smile. “It’s the first time I’ve put them on; d’you see, here is a little string drawn through!”

“Well, you’re a lucky one! And are they quite warm?”

“Rather!”

“I have also mittens at home, but I haven’t put them on because I don’t like them. They are yellow, and I don’t like yellow ones. Let me put yours on, and I’ll run along and show them to my babushka, and ask her to get me a pair like them.”

Mishka looked at Grisha pleadingly, and his eyes sparkled enviously.

“You won’t keep me waiting long?” asked Grisha.

“No, I live quite near here, just round the corner. Don’t be afraid! Upon my word, in a minute!”

Grisha trustfully took off his mittens and gave them to Mishka.

“I’ll be back in a minute, wait here, don’t go away,” exclaimed Mishka, as he ran off with Grisha’s mittens. He disappeared round the corner, and Grisha was left